Hey guys, the CSV tool is live. I'm posting this for Nancy, and have included a screen cap to help show everyone where everything is. We've worked hard, and we hope this helps!:

Hello all!

After another week of passionate and hard working dedication, the Dev Team is happy to release some amazing new features!

First, we have the long awaited Bulk Edit Markup by CSV (comma separated values) feature--look in the My Shop section. This allows you to download a CSV of models that are up for sale (either publically or privately for sale), you can import that file into your spreadsheet editor of choice, edit the markups in bulk and upload back to Shapeways. With a few Spreadsheet Formulas, you can do things like set all your margins to 10% and round up to the nearest $0.99. Depending on your Spreadsheet Wizardry, you can hack together a lot more complex markup structures.

One thing to note, if you are using Excel, save your files as "Windows Comma Separated (*.csv)" please.

Second, we are happy to announce a new top navigational bar and a new footer. In the upcoming months, the site will be improving rapidly with better usability features. We want to help drive more traffic to your shops and help your shoppers, your customers have a better experience of Shapeways. The new top navigational bar is simpler, cleaner and will create a better creating and shopping experience for all.

Last, in this release we have also released a bunch of bug fixes and site optimization to make the site load quicker.

The mist in my mind is starting to clear...
Would a php script make this csv thing easier?
Does Shapeways have anything in place that prevents a php script from pretending to be a browser for full on interactive (live) updating of the csv tool/file/thingy?
Just asking.

Hey guys, there's been a few bugs surfacing in the pricing calculation for the CSV markup tool. Because of our complicated pricing structure (minimum orders, start up fees, density discount, volume discounts, etc. etc.) the pricing calculator for the markup tool is running into some issues. We are trouble shooting this as I'm writing this, and I will update you intermittently on the issue.

Right now, the markup upload still works (when you upload $5 markup, you get $5 markup). The volume information is accurate for those who want to calculate pricing themselves. However, we are fixing this so you see accurate pricing--both for your current price and future price.

I apologize for the inconvenience. If you found any more issues, please feel free to email me at nancy@shapeways.com.

The issues mentioned in the above posts are FIXED! If you see anymore weirdness, please let me know. The prices are giving the right numbers. Please note though, these prices do not include VAT/Sales Tax. Since your shoppers can come from anywhere in the world, we can't estimate what the VAT is.

Last, if this wasn't clear already. You can sort and filter out rows. So even if you downloaded 100 rows of data, if you only want to filter out all but 5 rows, and then sort them. That's totally fine. The spreadsheet will only update the rows you upload.

When opening with Openoffice you have to take care on the right interpretation of "," and ".".
For me it leads to some values interpreted as datum.
(Changing "," to ";" and "." to "," leads to better results. Haven't checked if there is an easier way.

found problem. If for some reason the dollar symbol is included in markup field the programers did not have enough forsite to check for this and remove. Instead it did show $0 and now shows error. Come on guys.

not the cleverest way but even you should be able to understand how this works. Simple error checking does not mean detect if not number. It means check and fix common format types then check if not a number.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

- CSV tool parsing errors resolved
- some facebook js errors fixed
- shopping cart caching issues with # of items fixed
- selected materials for co-creators do not save fixed
- Sales Tax info not showing up in the order confirmation page fixed
- Wrong base price pops up when I first check material as available fixed
- Co Creators do not show the right price on site -fixed

Maybe I spoke to soon. Now the CSV does not work at all. I upload my file and then nothing. No error not a thing. Seems testing still is deemed not necessary. Please fix by saturday as I will need to upload a new CSV file then.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

Maybe I spoke to soon. Now the CSV does not work at all. I upload my file and then nothing. No error not a thing. Seems testing still is deemed not necessary. Please fix by saturday as I will need to upload a new CSV file then.

Hey FYI - this is now fixed. Please sound off if you are still having trouble with the CSV tool.

Found a major bug in the CSV system. If a model is marked not for sale not shown it does not show up in the CSV file. This is a problem because I am not going to put the model available for sale until after I have added the markup but I can not add the markup because it does not show up in the CSV. A bit of a catch 22 at the moment making it impossible for me to add new models(without going through the painstaking approach of manually setting everything which is what CSV is suppose to eliviate. I got 32 models currently not for sale because I can not set the price. Please Fix.

Also would be really nice if I could set sale status and visibility at same time. What is the point of uploading the CSV then manually clicking on all 32 models to make for sale but hidden(which is my plan) when I should be able to just mark them as such on the CSV and do everything at once.

also for hidden objects can you provide the sales URL in the CSV. Would be nice to be able to get this off the CSV file since I soon plan to hide most of my models to eliviate the crowded status of my shop.

[Updated on: Mon, 03 October 2011 19:45 UTC]

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

That is 444 steps(do you have shares in a mouse manufacturer?) When only the 16 marked with * should be needed. And I removed about 192 steps by writing an app to let me upload via FTP instead of using the on site upload system.

[Updated on: Mon, 03 October 2011 21:40 UTC]

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

Hey mctrivia, I just wanted to let you know that at the moment, we've designed the CSV to have the current capabilities, and not to include the ones you've mentioned. We did this to make sure we could get the CSV out for the community as fast as possible, so it we're aware doesn't handle all needs in all cases.

We will be offering more of the tools you need in future releases though.

getting to the minimum can wait. steps 4 to 168 should not be. just include the models that are not for sale yet will cut my work load by 33%. I should be able to set price by CSV before setting for sale.

Just realised that I can get rid of 181 to 440 myself by changing my upload script. So If you fix the lack of not yet for sale models and I alter my script I will be pretty happy

[Updated on: Mon, 03 October 2011 23:06 UTC]

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/

- descriptions
- available for sale
- display to the public
- material available in

They've already clearly said that these are planned enhancements, just not "immediate"- the urgent need was to allow markup changes, and they did a good job of getting that facility in place within deadline.

Descriptions is pretty tricky.. a simple CSV file can get seriously messed up if someone tries to do complicated HTML as a description - a misplaced quote character or comma, and the whole file blows up.

Available Material is also somewhat complicated. What we desire is the ability to Add or Remove a material.. the current CSV thing can only CHANGE what is already there.

For my own vote, I'd want the ForSale/DisplayToPublic options added next (with all models included).

[Updated on: Sat, 08 October 2011 17:11 UTC]

Patience, Persistance, Politeness - the 3Ps will help us get us to Perfect Printed Products

available material is easy. you have a boolean for if it is visible or not. the tricky part is they split up per material and not per model. My sugestion is all visible states must match in a model or it ignores the field for that model. Also allow the option of setting material to 0 and ignoring markup so someone can upload a csv file that only changes the visible status.

As for description. Excel and most spread sheet programs auto handle quotes and commas. The big problem is shapeways currently does not handle these correctly.

Follow me on twitter http://twitter.com/mctrivia or my blog at http://4ddice.blogspot.com/